1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mobile terminals. More particularly, the present invention relates to remotely synchronizing a mobile terminal by adapting ordering and filtering synchronization rules based on a user's operation of the mobile terminal.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Mobile terminals, such as handheld computers, cellular phones, tablet computers, etc., can be synchronized to personal information management (PIM) data, such as contacts and calendar data, as well as Internet data, such as emails and pre-selected web sites or other server based data. Updates to the data are typically synchronized between a target computer and the mobile terminal. For example, when a user updates a PIM database or downloads emails from a target computer, the database updates or new emails are transmitted to the mobile terminal during a synchronization session. FIG. 1 shows a prior art configuration for synchronizing a mobile terminal 2 to a target computer 4 over a direct, wired connection 6 (e.g., a USB connection).
If the user is away from the target computer 4, the mobile terminal 2 must be synchronized remotely. FIG. 2 shows prior art configurations for remotely synchronizing the mobile terminal 2 to the target computer 4 via the Internet 8. In one configuration, the mobile terminal 2 accesses the Internet 8 over a wired connection 10 (e.g., telephone lines) and an Internet service provider (ISP) 12. In another configuration, the mobile terminal 2 accesses the Internet over a wireless network such as a cellular provider network (CPN) 14 or a short range wireless access point (WAP) 15, such as Bluetooth, 802.11b, or Home RF. In either case the bandwidth of the communication channel is typically much less as compared to the bandwidth of the direct, wired connection as in FIG. 1, thereby increasing the latency in accessing the data as well as decreasing battery life of the mobile terminal. Further, a CPN 14 typically charges a connection fee for transmitting the synchronization data. It is therefore desirable to minimize the amount of information exchanged between the mobile terminal 2 and the target computer 4 when synchronizing remotely in order to minimize the synchronization time, conserve battery power, and minimize the connection fees. These problems are exacerbated as the mobile terminal's storage capacity increases allowing for a significant increase in the amount of synchronization data transmitted to the mobile terminal. Although the prior art has suggested various methods of filtering the synchronization data in order to reduce the synchronization time, further improvement is desirable.
FIG. 3 shows a prior art mobile terminal 16 comprising a plurality of application programs 18 for viewing and manipulating synchronized data exchanged with the target computer 4. After a synchronization session, the user typically executes one or more of the application programs 18 to view and/or manipulate the synchronized data. For example, the user may read and respond to emails downloaded from the target computer 4, and then browse web pages downloaded from the target computer 4. It is desirable to reduce the latency in accessing the synchronized data once transmitted to the mobile terminal so that the user may begin viewing and/or manipulating the synchronized data as soon as possible.
In addition, it is desirable to enhance the user's experience while browsing web sites on the mobile terminal, both on-line and off-line. Currently, off-line browsing on a mobile terminal is enabled by downloading pages from pre-selected web sites during a synchronization session. The web pages are downloaded to the mobile terminal starting with a selected web page, and following through the linked pages in the order they are encountered, until the memory allocated for the web site is exhausted. The user's ability to configure the synchronization process is very limited. For example, the user may specify a “link-depth” to limit the number of links that are followed from the starting web page. The user may also prevent the synchronization process from following links to “external” web sites. However, this limited control over the synchronization process can severely degrade the usefulness of off-line browsing since the memory allocated to a web site may be exhausted quickly before the pages of interest are actually downloaded. Even if the mobile terminal is equipped with mass storage (e.g., a disk drive), downloading every page of a web site to ensure the pages of interest are downloaded would extend significantly the synchronization process.
There is, therefore, a need to enhance the performance in transmitting information to a mobile terminal, particularly with respect to synchronizing remotely, so as to minimize access latency, conserve battery power, and minimize connection fees.